Path to Health

Cllr. Kieran Binchy was proud to be acting Lord Mayor at the official launch of the Ringsend Park SlÌ na Slainte walk in October.

He said, ‘An active park is a well kept park,’ and he hopes the new walk will attract more people to the area.

The new route encompasses a 1.1 km circuit around the 10.5 hectares park which consists of a large number of mixed mature and semi-mature trees. Cllr. Maria Parodi who played a big part in setting up the SlÌ na Sl·inte walks in the area said, ìit is about getting people out walking and active in the area and now that we have this facility it can only improve Ringsend Park as a whole and that can only be a positive.î Hopefully more people will get out and use it, it’s a great walk and a beautiful area.

Adele Byrne from the Irish Heart Foundation designed the new Sli na Slainte signs and said, ‘SlÌ na Slainte is an initiative developed by the Irish Heart Foundation. It is designed to encourage people of all ages to walk for health using sign posted walking routes to help people reach their 30 minutes a day walking or 60 minutes for younger people.’

Michael Noonan the Dublin City Council Parks Superintendent told me, ‘The idea started back at the beginning of the year. A committee of local residents, the Gardai and the Dublin City Council Parks Division all got involved.’ The new walk was networked to other walks for people to use, for example, the Sean Moore Park SlÌ na Slainte walk is a 1.2 km route conveniently joining up with the Poolbeg Lighthouse SlÌ na Sl·inte walk which is a 10.2km round route beginning on the Beach Road. This also links in with the East Coast Sli na Slainte route from Dun Laoghaire to Malahide. And in the near future he plans to tie in the three new walks to the Dodder Sli na Slainte walks to.